Day 21 - Least Favourite Character

[lizbee]

The first time I saw nostalgia refer to Odo as a fascist, I was like, "Hang on, that's a bit unfair."

Then I watched DS9 again, and frankly, with each successive rewatch, it becomes increasingly obvious just how fair it is.

(I'm not technically rewatching right now, but between The Greatest Generation: Deep Space 9, sohotrightnow's blog posts and nostalgia doing a rewatch, I may as well be.)

"Character is biologically determined to seek order; is naturally authoritarian as a result" is an interesting premise, but DS9 doesn't really consider the logical next questions, ie, "Is that a good thing?" and "Can he change?" Worse, much of the time they don't seem to realise what it is they're depicting: harassment by law enforcement as comedy; straight-up collaboration.

That's the nadir: the bit in ... season 6? When the station is under Dominion control, and we cut from Quark saying, "Odo would never collaborate" to ... Odo collaborating.

["My Odo is not a collaborator. He may be a liar, a pig, an idiot, a collaborator...but he is NOT a porn star."]

But he's forgiven in the end, even by Kira, and then we all move on as if nothing happened.

Then we come to the worst thing about Odo: his relationship with Kira diminishes her. Admittedly, none of her love interests are much good, but with Odo, she basically becomes an object to be nice guyed into submission.

Runner up: Vic Fontaine, Odo's PUA trainer. Aside from the fact that I find his personality irritating and resent that he takes up so much screentime which could, for example, be dedicated to developing Ezri, it's just kind of obnoxious how DS9 is suddenly doing stories about the personhood of holograms without, for example, doublechecking that Voyager hasn't been covering this exact ground for years.




Day 22 - Favorite Trek Film
Day 23 - Best Trek Tech
Day 24 - Best Overall Space Vessel
Day 25 - Favorite Discovery Episode
Day 26 - Planet You Would Most Like To Visit
Day 27 - Character You Would Date
Day 28 - Name Your Own Starship
Day 29 - Favorite Trek Quote
Day 30 - Favorite Trek Series

Comments

[muccamukk]

There was that one terrible mirror universe episode that seemed to premise the entire thing on tee hee lesbians. But Vic got shot in the chest. So it wasn't all bad.

[sabotabby]

Entirely fair. I like the character but definitely would not want to know him IRL.

[nostalgia]

I am liking Odo more this time round but he's still a fascist. He loves order rather than justice and that's... genetic, somehow. Which is suspect. I think we're supposed to assume he was somehow protecting people from worse when he was a cop for the Cardassians but that doesn't seem that likely given that they're Space Nazis and working for them can't possibly be good. I could understand if he simply didn't know any better or had no alternative but it's never presented as something he regrets.

[skygiants]

I love Odo, but some of the reasons I find him fascinating to watch are the same reasons I find Inspector Javert fascinating to watch; it's a demonstration of all the ways in which Lawful Neutral is not Good, and honestly one of my greatest disappointments with seasons 6 and 7 is the way the show fails to follow through on that.

(All that said, my important personal headcanon about Odo is that he's an extremely young person who's been using his shapechanging powers to cosplay a gruff older man his entire life, and if anyone else had ever actually called him on this I think a lot of his arc might have turned out differently....)

[havocthecat]

This is making me feel like I didn't miss much by not watching later years of DS9.

[(Anonymous)]

THANK YOU for so eloquently expressing all the reasons I dislike Odo's character, and especially Kira/Odo.

I never could understand why she forgave him for collaborating. Or why she fell in love with him when they so clearly had completely different morals and ideologies - something that was very important to her. And I'll never forgive the show for pushing Kira, that amazing and complex woman with power who totally OWNED herself and made no apologies - into the role of Girlfriend/Symbol Of Male-Identifying Character's Emotional Dilemma.